aburiya kinnosuke fish lunch

So after the sushi on Tuesday I wanted more kama. I tried to find it at Aburiya Kinnosuke near my office, but it was not to be. They had a fish lunch special with mackeral cooked on the robota, fried oysters with tartar sauce (um this was egg salad, guys), rice, miso soup, this yummy potato salad thing and this other veggie thing (radish maybe?) that was pickled with sesame seeds on top.

I adored everything but the main bit, the mackerel. I don't know if it was just a bad piece but mine was grossly overcooked. I could not break it apart with my chopsticks so I had to let my fingers lend a hand just to get bite sizes pieces of the near-jerky like mackerel. It came with a nice spicy dollop of something and the little lemon triangle which is almost impossible to squeeze without shooting it across your tray.


The oysters were HUGE and delicious. The "tartar sauce" was egg salad and kinda bland. I'd have liked more of the pickles from the potato salad.


I did get to watch the two chefs out front preparing things for other patrons. That was fun. For the rest I mostly fiddled with my iPhone as I was eating solo.

After the meal they gave me square mochi with a caramel sauce and yummy warm tea!

blue ribbon sushi

So I had Tuesday off and decided we'd go to blue ribbon sushi.

I demanded we have the hamachi kama and after he tasted it he knew why. It was delicious, though a bit too salty for him (not for me! mwahahaha!) I'm a lemon fiend so I craved more lemon to squeeze over it. (There were two other pieces but we swooped before I remembered to bring out the camera.)


Next we shared a sashimi & sushi platter which only had 2 roll choices? Seriously?!?! 2? It was just spicy tuna and California roll. I was disappointed. Even Hatsuhana around my office has more choices for rolls that come with your selection.


I saw that they had poached lobster on the menu and was hoping it was just a bit because I wanted to try the miso butter but wasn't quite hungry enough to have a whole lobster on top of the sushi. Wrong.. so we asked them to put some of the butter on two lobster sashimi (it was cooked), but not only did they not do that: the lobster was rubbery.

Everything else in the set was awesome though. I ordered an o-toro sushi piece and the waiter recommended something to him that I've completely forgotten. It's right between the o-toro and the lobster in the picture though.

We had the green tea creme brulee for dessert, but I forgot to take a picture.

He ninjaed most of the sugar on top anyway.

another yummy box from yasuda

I picked the special where you get 12 pieces of sushi and a half roll. My half roll was salmon skin (and kinda too salty)

The eel was delicious, the uni was very fresh and the rest was awesome too! I forgot all I ordered though.

I think there was bonito, 2xsalmon, yellowtail, tuna, shrimp, freshwater eel, spanish-mackerel, sea trout, striped bass and rainbow-trout but don't quote me on the last two.

I wanted butter-fish but they were out.

hainanese chicken rice from Nyonya

They need to add more chicken on top of the rice. It was tasty nonetheless.

this little piggy was spotted

I had all week to decide where I wanted to go for my birthday on the 2nd and it took me till 3pm to go "hey, let's do the Spotted Pig."

I'd wanted to go for ages and this desire was re-sparked when I read a mention of their gnudi in a fluff magazine article about Mandy Moore in NYmag.

The avid yelper/researcher that I am, I'd read that in order to get a seat you had to arrive around 5:30. So we did..

We were seated in a cozy little nook on the second floor that overlooked some lucky person's lush backyard.

To start I had a mojito (of course). Mike (the indulgent boyfriend) started off with a speckled hen.

I went down the list and picked what I'd wanted beside the gnudi.

I got the chicken liver toasts, gnudi and the crispy pig's ear.

Mike got the burger and a side of sugar snap peas with black mint (this mint didn't look black, idk)


Anyhoo onto the food.

The chicken liver toasts came first and the bread was dripping with luscious olive oil. A huge mound of chopped chicken liver was on each piece. I mmed at the first bite and made him try some which he wasn't too pleased about.

Next up were the gnudi...

Oh gnudi...

Lovely gnudi...

If I could go here every day I would get these each time and swoon anew.

They were perfectly tender pockets of seasoned ricotta served in a decadent butter sauce with fried sage and a little red drizzle as garnish.

Words probably cannot describe how delicious these were.

I've been telling everyone I know about them. That's about as close as I can get.

I scoured the web looking for a recipe for them and came up with a Gothamist post that I will try, but I still want to know what they put in the sauce. If Mandy Moore can learn the recipe for these little pillows of deliciousness, surely a dedicated foodie should be allowed the honor?


I chose to have the pig ear arrive alongside Mike's burger.

It was served with a yummy little salad with lots of lemon segments that balanced the fatty, chewy piece quite well.

I made Mike try this and he complained it stuck in his teeth to which I replied "eat something else and it'll come out."

It did.

As you can see I barely remembered to snap a picture of this (and this will be a trend for some of the next photos of the night).

Here are Mike's burger and shoestring fries.

I got to taste both.

The burger was moist and covered with just enough roquefort to add great flavor.

The fries were awesome. They have little slivers of fried garlic and rosemary mixed in. I nabbed about 65% of the garlic from his plate.

Even though I'd managed to upend half of the peas onto the couch we were sitting on (I'm sorry!) the bits we got to eat were quite delicious.


For dessert I'd asked our server (who was also awesome, by the way, but I forgot her name. She had longish brownish hair. I realize how descriptive that was. :P).. ahem I asked our server if they did birthday candles since Mike wanted to make sure I got one. They did.

I chose the banoffee pie which is basically layers of banana, soft toffee and whipped cream with a tiiiiiiny bit of tart crust at the end.

I was almost done when I remembered to take a picture so I stuck the candle back in and here it is.

Mike had the chocolate, walnut amaretto cake. It came with a dollop of sour cream (which he hates) that went well with my banoffee pie.

This is what was left by the time I remembered to take pictures of the desserts.

We will definitely be back. In fact, this is the first restaurant (that's not a pizza place) that Mike has said this about without prompting or urging by yours truly.

Spotted Pig, I salute thee... now give up the gnudi.